1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to interactive video delivery mediums such as interactive television, and more particularly to a system and method for generating and scrolling pictures in an interactive television application.
2. Description of the Related Art
Interactive television is an interactive audio/video delivery medium which provides broadcast audiovisual content to a number of subscribers. Interactive television provides broadcast video and audio to users and also provides a return path for the user to interact with the content, e.g., to make selections or order desired products, etc. To provide content with maximum bandwidth efficiency, interactive television systems may compress their content with an audio/video or image compression technique. The system at the subscriber's location must then be able to decompress the content for local display or replay.
The Internet is a world wide collection of inter-connected networks. In the last several years, the Internet has been growing at an exponential rate. The major attribute that these inter-connected networks share is use of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) communications protocol. Several different protocols are used for making information available on the Internet. Among these are the text-only, hierarchical Gopher protocol and the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) used on the hypertext, multimedia World Wide Web (WWW or Web).
In many applications it is desirable to display still pictures or images on an interactive television system. Examples include the display of advertising pictures, electronic program guides or other content, for an interactive television application. Another example is an interactive television system used for Internet activities, such as web browsing. The use of an Internet capable television system for web browsing is often generally referred to as web TV. The transmission and display of still images or pictures, such as Internet files, through an interactive television system is hampered by the need to compress the large size and quantity of files required to be transmitted to the subscriber. Compression becomes complicated by the consideration that it may be desirable to provide still images or pictures with different, unique sizes. Therefore, the need exists to be able to compress Internet files in such a way that they can be decoded in a standard manner.
Also, in many cases it is desirable to provide still images or pictures to a television system which are larger than the viewing size of the television. For example, Internet web pages are typically larger than the viewing screen of a computer display. Thus, to provide or simulate web browsing capabilities in an interactive television environment, it is necessary or desirable to be able to provide still pictures to the television which are larger than the viewing area of the television. This is complicated by the fact that many compression standards require a standard, fixed image size, for compression and decompression purposes. When pictures are provided to a television which are larger than the viewing size of the television, it is necessary to provide the user with the capability to scroll down and/or across the display screen, much like the user can scroll through an image on a computer screen. However, providing a user in an interactive television application with the ability to scroll through an image is complicated by the video compression used in sending still pictures to the television. Therefore, a system and method is desired which enables a user to scroll through pictures in an interactive television application.